If you want to know why I don't watch wrestling anymore, look to the news for articles about the Benoit family. Vince may want us to forget, but I won't. I also can't forget the kid at Wildside who used steroids so he could get noticed by the WWE.

I'm not very coherent right now about this. I'm still in the reeling, flailing stages.

After 4 days and 2 1/2 hours back at work, I can say that this place definitely sucks the life out of you. :-p

Of course, the fact that I haven't slept well the last couple of nights probably isn't helping the matter, either. :-p

BUT, in good news, I'm writing! And some people even like what I'm writing, so I'm happy. :-)

For Guy Buckmaster, a marketing director in Clearwater, Florida, gaming with his six children began in the late 1990s with "Diablo II: Lord of Destruction."

I'd love to hear how they did that, since Diablo II came out in 2000 and the "Lord of Destruction" expansion came out in 2001...

From This article on CNN.com

HOME!!!!!!!!

More later. Got catching up with home to do.

I was looking in my home closet today, and I think what I need to do fairly soon is pull every stitch of clothing out of it, pile it on the bed, and try everything on. I've got a feeling that while the dresses will be OK, most of the pants are going to have to be donated and replaced, since my new stoma is about an inch higher on my abdomen than my old one and would be right on the waist band of them.

For most women, this would be a great thing. For me? Tiring to think about. :-p I'm not big on clothes, I'd wear jeans and T-Shirts all the time if I could.

Pain is because of cut muscles, the surgeon says. There's no magic cure, just rest and time. So I'm out of work another 2 weeks.

Note to self: Rice hurts like hell later, don't eat it. :-p

Steps forward and backwards... there is a lot more pain then there had been with any of the other abdominal surgeries, and I've been runing an low-grade fever off and on for the past few days. I'm tired, and tired of pain, and tired of not finding real comfortable ways to sit and stand. I'm worried that June 5th is going to get here and I'm going to be in no position to go back to work.

I'm doing better.

Yesterday I got everything done I needed to get my ostomy supplies delivered monthly to my door, which helped my state of mind a lot. So did the shower. ;-)

There are three huge, cute kittens here... Yin weighs 1 pound 9 ounces and still looks very bear-cub like. Yang (who just climbed Dad's chair into my lap) also weighs 1 pound 9 ounces, and seems to be trying to have 1 blue eye and 1 other colored eye, maybe yellow. Tao weighs 1 pound 11 ounces and is quite fuzzy.

I'll be doing some editing of the links on the side in a little while... replace the BCIR information with more relavent information.

Kinda short... I'm out of the hospital, but I'm a long way from being what I'd consider well. Me and this new external stoma are going to have to get to know each other a good bit better... I've gone from having a small stoma (the size of my upper thumb joint) under the skin to this huge thing sticking out above the skin. The ostomy nurse and the surgeon say it'll get smaller over the next six weeks, but I hate how it looks right now.

I'm also in a lot of pain... let's just say he opened me up enough to give a detailed report on the state of my ovaries, uterus, liver, and gallbladder, as well as the small intestine and keeping an eye on my urethas (the connections from the kidneys to the bladder). There's also new pain on the left side since that's where the stoma is (normally it's on the right side, but that's where all the scar tissue and stuff from all the infections was). And of course the arthritis in my back has yet to forgive me for spending hours on an operating table and 3 days in a bed that didn't have 1 inch memory foam on it.

So... I'm alive. I'm breathing. But I'm not happy yet, and this is going to be a slow process. I don't want to wallow in despair, but I'm feeling overwhelmed, because I have to call the insurance company and get started on figuring out how the fuck I get ostomy supplies. I have enough to last me a couple of weeks if I'm good, but...

Oh, and yeah, this stuff isn't necessarily cheap, either. I know Dad has to pay full price for his, and then eventually get slightly reimbursed by his insurance company.

AND the hospital is already screwing up my insurance by not having the right account number for me, even though I wrote it down twice when I was doing all the pre op stuff AND they made a goddamn copy of my card.

Oh, and the insurance company didn't pay for a bunch of lab tests last month to determine why I got the clots in December, and they won't pay for the ambulance ride, so I owe one place $540 and the other $600+.

Yeah. I'm stressed, and I'm overwhelmed, and I'm not coping real well yet. Bear with me, or don't.

No way to put this but bluntly:

I'm having surgery Friday the 18th to have my guts rearranged again. I had another abscess start Sunday, and have been on 2 antibiotics since Monday, and just had it drained an hour ago. The surgeon absolutely did not like what he saw in there, and said that if we waited, I ran the risk of it getting infected over and over, leading to the huge chances of dead tissue and lots of other bad things.

So, he'll go in Friday morning, take out the existing collar and valve, and make a new stoma on the left side for a standard Brooke's ileostomy. So, no more tight, low-slung clothing. Sorry, guys. ;-)

I'm with my parents right now, and will be out of work for another 3 weeks or so. I'm going to ask my folks to move the kittens here, into Dad's office, so I can keep socializing them. My guys will be OK, although I'll still go over there as often as possible.

I'll let ya'll know more when I have it.

Tao watching Shortcake eat. I don't think she believes that anyone would like that hard crunchy stuff.












Tao contemplates climbing Mt. Jenn-leg. Thankfully, her claws are small and the jeans are thick. ;-)














Yang checks out my sock feet.











Yin was sleepy last Saturday.

2 hour waits for 3 minute consults are pretty much gaurenteed to put me in a pissy mood.

However, it was all good news, so I'll forgive the hematologist. This time. ;-)

After taking 12 vials of blood last time, they did all their magic on it and determined that either my faulty heart beat or something left over from my multiple abdominal surgeries last year was the cause of the clots, and I can get off the Coumadin in June.

*would dance if I wasn't so tired*

THEY'VE FOUND AN EARTH-LIKE PLANET!!!

*bounces*

As an unapologetic space geek, this is awesome, incredible news. I can't tell you or make you understand how happy this makes me. :-)

Shortcake takes a well-deserved break from the kittens. I've managed to comb most of the tangles out of her fut, and her coat is really improving.













Yang and Yin practice getting into the perfect shape for their names. ;-)














Is there anything as cute and comfortable looking as a pile of sleeping kittens?

Some more pics from this weekend...



Shortcake was never too far away, and even grabbed a hold of Tao from time to time. ;-)











Here is Tao... you can see the smudge between the eyes and the pattern on her chest pretty clearly.
















Yang, chewing on his paw.










And here's Yin. She really, REALLY doesn't like to be away from her siblings or mom. She cried the whole time I had her out, so I didn't get a lot of good pictures.









Yin is the biggest at just over 13 ounces, Yang comes in second at 12 1/2 ounces, and Tao weighs a hair over 12 ounces. We think Yang may be albino, considering how pink his body is and how redly his eyes reflect the light.

Here's the gang... they're really exploring their cage a lot, except for Tao, who still likes to sleep. ;-)








This one is posted only because Tao is in the background going, "HEY!! GETOFFOFMEEEE!!!"










This morning I pulled Yang out, since he was the only one awake, and let him crawl around on a clean sheet on the floor. Shortcake was never too far away, and this picture shows just how small he still is... that's her back foot.














Sorry for the red-eye, but Microsoft's Picture Editor is as complicated a graphics program as I can manage. :-p Anyways, here he is on wobbly legs.












A shot showing that he hasn't quite got walking down yet... one back leg or another never quite does the same as the rest. ;-)

I swear, if one of my co-workers says, "Oh, it doesn't matter," or "I don't care," or "You decide for us," one more time, I'm going to scream. I'm not getting paid to be their manager, and right now I'm really tired of being leaned on like one. Am I really so old and out of touch that I can't comprehend why people won't make a decision and take responsibility for it?

Here's all three of them snoozing together. Yang is practicing his camouflage.







Tao still has her eyes completely closed. She all about the sleeping. ;-) But, not to worry, she does wriggle about a good bit, and she's the first one I've heard purr.















Yang's eyes are partially open, hence the pitiful look here.














Yin's eyes were open last night. Figured that the fraidy-cat would want to be able to see the monsters coming after her. ;-)








The sisters snoozing together.












In other animal news, I heard an owl on my property for the first time last night.

I have KITTENS!!!



This is Shortcake, the young mother of three kittens born April 5th. She's medium hairred, incredibly sweet and affectionate, with a great purr.











This is Tao, a girl. You can't see much of it in this picture, but she has a white smudge on her face along with white paws. She's not a morning kitty. ;-) She's also the smallest of the three.












This is Yang, the boy, and the biggest by far. He's very curious and has already tried to climb out of the cage, even with his eyes still closed! He's going to be a huge white puffball when he grows up. ;-)









This is Yin, the other girl. She's quite a whiner, crying at everything, which makes Shortcake a bit frantic at times. She's also very long haired already.